Community groups and researchers unite at Montreal City Hall to help ban police checks

The standing committee on public security held a public meeting today at Montreal City Hall to present two studies pertaining to police checks and road interceptions as they relate to racial profiling.

Citizen organizations, advocacy groups for rights, and marginalized communities gathered and are demanding that the only recommendation from the independent research team be implemented immediately: the moratorium on police checks, which is condemned as a fundamentally discriminatory practice.

“We expect the City of Montreal and the Mayor Valerie Plante, to take the responsibility and to declare publicly that street checks most stop and to take action to have a ban on street checks. It’s a necessity and we think that Montrealers must have the rights and freedom respected and that socially and racially created by street checks must stop right now,” said Lynda Khelil, Spokesperson of Ligue des Droits et Libertés.

The Quebec Court of Appeal upheld a 2022 lower court ruling last October, that found the Highway Safety Code that provides for police checks violates the Canadian Charter of rights and freedoms.

Additionally, just last week the Quebec government said it’s taking that decision to the Supreme Court of Canada.

“I’d like to see a specific law on racial profiling. Then we’ll try to see if it’s possible to have one and of course that law would need to have teeth, that is to be able to punish the forces of the status quo and anyone who directly or indirectly tries to combat efforts to combat racial profiling,” said Max Stanley, President of Black Coalition of Quebec.

More than 100 organizations have signed a declaration in favour of the ban following a campaign that was launched in February 2023.